MONTICELLO -- Bail was set Friday in Sullivan County Court at $50,000 cash or bond for a 16-year-old girl charged with stabbing two fellow students at Liberty High School.

As part of the conditions of posting bail, Steffie Burger was ordered to be transferred directly to a children's psychiatric hospital for assessment and treatment.

Burger was arraigned Friday morning on an indictment in the June 6 stabbing of a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy who tried to intervene. Both needed stitches. The indictment charges attempted first-degree assault and three counts of second-degree assault, felonies, and misdemeanor counts of weapon possession and resisting arrest. She was also there on her lawyer's request to have bail set on the assault case and on a new first-degree sexual abuse charge involving a 12-year-old in the Town of Fallsburg.

Burger, slight and little more than five feet tall, jiggled her leg nervously as she stood before Judge Frank LaBuda with her lawyer, Gary Greenwald.

Greenwald entered a "not guilty" plea for his client, and launched into an impassioned bail argument.

"We have oodles of records in which my client and family did everything humanly possible to keep that girl away from my client," Greenwald said. He said there were three to five prior incidents in which the other girl attacked Burger, at least once involving the other girl's 18-year-old sister. Greenwald said Burger received a Facebook message from the girl the night before, threatening to hurt her, and responded by saying she'd knife her.

"She was tired, your honor. She was tired of being beaten," Greenwald said.

She is troubled, he acknowledged. She was raped at age 15 by a 40-year-old man, who is currently in Sullivan County Jail facing the statutory second-degree rape charge. Her father committed suicide. And she has been bullied, Greenwald argued, by a girl who, despite being a year younger, is "50 to 75 pounds heavier and much larger."

The psychiatric evaluation found that being in the jail has been detrimental to her mental health, Greenwald said, and she needs treatment.

"She needs to be with her family, and she needs to have support," he said.

On the sexual abuse case, Greenwald disputed that any force was involved. There had been a relationship between Burger and the 12-year-old, and the 12-year-old's mother was aware. Facebook messages show the nature of the relationship the two had, he said.

Greenwald asked for bail no higher than $10,000.

Assistant District Attorney Robert Zangla disputed Greenwald's characterizations. Burger used enough force to cause the 12-year-old to cry out in pain and ignored repeated requests to stop what she was doing, he said.

In the stabbing, he said, whatever went before, Burger was certainly the aggressor on June 6, as shown by the video.

"You see the defendant walking back and forth by the victim's locker, waiting for her to return," Zangla said. "She was looking for her that day. She had indicated the day before that she was going to stab the victim, and she carried through."

Burger had been suspended from school previously for bringing in a knife, Zangla argued, and in an April 22 fight with the 15-year-old, both girls were suspended three days.

Burger and her mother had gone to Liberty police after that fight. Liberty's school resource officer notified the school, which made the suspension decision.

Burger told police she stabbed the other girl in the leg so she'd go down, so Burger could hurt her more, he said. Zangla cited the psychiatric report, which said Burger has poor coping skills, and poor anger management and impulse control, and that she needs inpatient treatment before being released to the community. He asked LaBuda to set $75,000 bail on the assault and $30,000 on the sexual abuse.

LaBuda said the case is complicated: a juvenile with clear mental-health issues, charged as an adult with violent crimes, and herself the apparent victim of a sexual assault by an adult male.

LaBuda noted that the mental health evaluation says Burger is functioning on the level of a 12-year-old and belongs in psychiatric care.

He set bail at $50,000 to cover both cases, and ordered that, should her family post bail, she be transported by the sheriff's office to Rockland County Children's Psychiatric Hospital.

Greenwald asked what would happen if Rockland refused to take her - a possibility that arose last week. Sullivan County's director of community services, Joseph Todoro, stood up in the gallery. He told the judge he'd spoken to Rockland's director.

"He is ready and willing to take her today," Todoro said.

After court, Greenwald said he and the family were pleased with the bail decision. He expected that bail would be posted by the end of the day.

Burger also has a Family Court case, because her mother had brought a persons in need of supervision petition there following the rape of her daughter, Greenwald said.